Jan 1, 2013

Like everyone else on the planet today, I've been thinking about all the things I want to do differently in 2013. I've got a laundry list of things that I could tell you about myself that I'd like to focus on improving in the New Year, but some of them are too intimate and I don't really feel like sharing them in case I don't do so good.

But then today I got this letter mailed to me from my friend Jillian. She attached this Post-It note to a couple of Pom Wonderful pomegranate coupons:

I peeled back the note and checked out the coupons it was attached to and just laughed my ass off. Talk about someone knowing you so well! Of course I was itching to immediately grab my scissors and start neatly trimming around the edges so I could tighten that shit up. In fact, one of the coupons she sent was so badly ripped that the tear went right through the little section where you can see the expiration date of the coupon. C'Mon! I was thinking to myself, "How can I even use this at the grocery store? The cashier won't even be able to use it." And oh how that bothered me.

One of the poorly clipped coupons

But then I paused and thought that getting these coupons couldn't have come at a better time for me because it reminded me that this was one of the things about myself that I wanted to work on in the New Year - my perfectionism which has probably manifested itself into a very mild form of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. (Yes, I am compelled to line up my wallet "stripper ones" so that the faces are all pointing in the same direction - don't you?)

It's this perfectionism that has prevented me from writing more because every word has to be placed just so. It's this perfectionism that won't let me start a project unless I know I'll be able to complete it 100% within weird self-imposed strict guidelines or else I've failed.

I know I'm sitting here writing this and I'm not happy with how I'm getting my point across, but you know what? I need to be OK with it. I need to console myself and say that at least I'm writing something rather than just thinking of all the things I want to write. I'm performing an action.

In 2013, one of my resolutions is to embrace the rough edges that come my way and learn to maneuver around them. After all, it's not always about the straight line and sometimes you just can't find those damn scissors.